Bone Cold
I’m not sure that “Bone Cold” is a great title for this film. With the snowy location most of it takes place in, it’s understandable, and thematically, it kind of works, but given how the film is ultimately about PTSD and the mistakes we keep running through our heads, it doesn’t quite fit the film’s subject matter. That being said, for a film with a setting as evocative and chilling as this one has through most of it, it’s a minor issue in the long run.
When we first meet them, Jon Bryant (Jonathan Stoddard) and Marco Miller (Matt Munroe) are on their final job before leave. They are a sniper team the government sends in if they want to get a difficult job done. Both are looking forward to some time off- Marco with his mother, and Bryant with his wife and daughter. Not even a day after they get home, however, they are brought in for an off-the-books mission in Ukraine- a high-value target, who thinks they could shift the direction of the war- is in hiding; the government wants Bryant and Miller to take him out. When the mission doesn’t go as planned, however, their escape route gets harder, as they have more than just enemy forces after them.
In a way, writer-director Billy Hanson seems to have structured his film after “Predator,” and it’s a good template to work off of- the film starts as a military action movie, but turns into a horror film. What is after the two is not as strongly defined as in that iconic film, however, but it still creates a strong presence in the film. I’ve written before about my affinity for snow-covered locations, and “Bone Cold” makes the most of its locations. The setting makes the psychological struggles Bryant will go through as intense as the physical one the two have to endure, as they have to make it to a safe location- as well as a surprise second target- in order to go home. That is only a portion of the film, however; once home again, Bryant in particular will have to deal with the aftermath of this mission, and runs the risk of putting his family in harm’s way. The climax we get in this film seems like an afterthought, at first, but it’s actually the entire movie. We’re not quite sure how things are truly going to work out by the end, but we do feel like we’ve been on a journey with Bryant, and it’s one that effectively uses genre to get to its thematic points. Title aside, “Bone Cold” is worth seeing for yourself.
